


Sons of Apathy

by Inferification



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: AU - Vanya knows about her powers, Child Abuse, Drug Use, Fixing these poor children, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Therapy, fix-it AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2019-11-06 01:11:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17929913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inferification/pseuds/Inferification
Summary: An AU in which Vanya manages to leave the Academy and becomes a psychologist. She comes back to try and help her siblings. Set 5 years before the TV series.





	1. Introductions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from the Young Guns song of the same name. Quoted sections from the comics.

Vanya reads her father’s assessment on Luthor and sighs to herself a little. She’s not surprised at the depths of their father’s depravity and lack of empathy anymore, simply disappointed. When she left at sixteen, ditching the pills at her therapist’s recommendation, she’d discovered exactly why her father had wanted them stifled. Vanya had to take a gap year before college to even get a small amount of control over them, but she had managed. She’d wanted to kill Sir Reginald Hargreeves and the rest of the Umbrella Academy for years until her studies touched on the effects of childhood abuse and her world flipped.

Now all she wants to do is save them.

Fresh out of her training as a psychologist specialising in childhood abuse, she’s crept back into their home and broken into her father’s private notes on each of them, looking for the basis of each of their own personal struggles.

“Miss Vanya?”

Pogo, she thinks, tensing a little at the guardian so complicit in Reginald’s schemes. She counts backwards from ten before turning around, a technique Klaus had suggested to center her emotionally when she was particularly disturbed by something, or in this case, someone.

“Hello Pogo,” she says, turning around to face him. 

He’s barely changed since she last saw him nine years ago; a little white has creeped into his fur around the face, but he still holds himself with the same stoicism.

“Your father never thought you would return to us,” Pogo tells her, half-moon spectacles glimmering in the dim light of the study. “You have no reason to.”

She rolls her eyes and snaps her father’s notes on Luther shut, before focusing in on the ape. She focuses on the hum of electricity coursing through the lightbulb and curls out a tendril of her power to shatter it.

“If I was being objective, I’d never step foot in this place again, knowing that the supposed adults here manipulated me into forgetting I had powers,” Vanya says, voice filling with venom. “But the rest of the Academy deserve better.”

Pogo has the decency to look ashamed, but doesn’t refute her claims. Doesn’t apologise or answer for his actions, however, just stands there as ineffective as he’d been when they’d been children.

“You can either help me find the right files and where the rest of my siblings are, or you can leave me alone. It’s not like you can stop me.”

She leaves the Academy with the files. Pogo had long-since vanished.

***

> "Appreciably enhanced physical strength and resilience. Excels at everything he tries, particularly aviation and marksmanship—and knows it. Dedication bordering on inhuman. Ruthless leadership abilities. My favorite."  
>  —The Monocle

In the safety of her shithole of an apartment, small and disgusting, but hers, she curls up under a thermal blanket, steaming mug of tea by her side.

Luther had always been the golden child of the family. He personified the ideals her father was trying to cultivate: strength, steadfastness, dedication. He also personified some of her father’s negative aspects: arrogance to the point of cruelty, the belief in his own superiority which extended to all of the others. Apparently that’s what happens when you name your children based on usefulness rather than out of love. 

Luther also is still completely dependent on her father. She’s followed a little of what became of her siblings, just enough to know that he was the only one who stayed after Ben died. Her brother can barely function on his own.

She remembers the Luther of her childhood, desperate as the rest of them for even the smallest amount of their father’s love, and the only one who ever received it. He’d been protective of them, at first, back when the words of poison Sir Reginald poured into his ear hadn’t taken root. Luthor had tried to inspire and push them, even when the rose-tinted vision they’d all had of being superheroes had faded, increasingly frustrated as they’d only drifted further away.

When Vanya’s father had finally labelled her useless at age seven, Luther barely spoke to her again.

> "An insolent brat. Ability to hold breath indefinitely is of dubious if any use. Not bad with a knife—as illustrated by the amount of gashes in the Caravaggio. Predictably reckless."  
>  —The Monocle

Diego had almost been as dedicated as Luther, until he realised Luther would always be better than him in father’s mind. He’d moved on to Mom after that and flourished under her care. He lost the stutter and also gained independence from their father, for which he was severely punished.

Once he’d broken away, still dedicated to the mission, but not the man behind it, he’d look after the others, taking the role Luther was supposed to fill. He even paid attention to Vanya every-so-often. He’d always been angry, however, at everything and the world, and that anger would make him lash-out at them all. He would be deliberately cruel to make himself feel better, and eventually they all hated him for it.

> "Insufferable, narcissistic creature, but extremely useful. Prevaricates with appalling ease."  
>  —The Monocle

Allison had always been her friend. She’d had the same degree of separation and dismissiveness towards Vanya as the rest of the Academy proper, but they’d also been the only two girls, which was enough commonality for them to bond.

Her sister could manipulate and lie better than most people Vanya had ever met and it was only encouraged by their father. She wasn’t a narcissist, however, no matter what her father might say. No narcissist would let Vanya stay up late and discuss boys with her. No narcissist would encourage Klaus to experiment with clothing and let him wear her clothes. Allison cared all-too-much about what other people thought, but also cared too much to let that get in the way when she was needed.

Vanya could remember planning their escape, promising eachother to always be there.

Then Allison fell in love with Hollywood and they drifted apart when she chose auditions over hanging out with Vanya every time.

Vanya couldn't blame her for escaping any way she could.

> "Development of psychic abilities stunted by fretful, morbid temperament. Inexplicable resemblance to an Ingmar Bergman extra."  
>  —The Monocle

Klaus had always been the odd one out, apart from Vanya, of course. He couldn’t control his powers, couldn’t turn them off whenever he wanted. He spoke to ghosts, people who nobody else could see. He would spend whole nights screaming himself hoarse, waking in the morning with dead, dark-smudged eyes. Their father soundproofed his room when they were seven and they stopped caring so much.

Sir Reginald damaged them all, but it was Klaus he managed to break entirely. 

Vanya had been up late one night, unable to sleep while the notes of Vivaldi were still whirling in her mind, when she heard Klaus and their father coming home from a training mission. He’d been completely silent, eyes vacant, and he’d barely been able to support himself, Sir Reginald basically dragging him back to his room.

Looking back, Klaus was the most sensitive of all of the Hargreeves children, the least resilient. That softness and vulnerability had been ruthlessly exploited by their father to the point that they’d all lost him to drugs and alcohol, the effects easier to bear than the rest of the world.

He would come to her room sometimes, always looking small in his pyjamas, always skinny, even when they were children. He could sit for hours and listen to her play, eyes shut and mind drifting. He once told her music could drown the ghosts out.

Klaus was the one she felt guilty about leaving behind.

> "Disappeared several days ago. No great loss."  
>  —The Monocle

Five was the cleverest of them and he knew it. He would argue with their father almost as much as Diego and completely refused to admit he was wrong. Ever.

Five would spend hours reading alone, barely noticing the world around him. He never cared if Vanya joined him or not, as long as she remained a silent ghost, as invisible in his company as she was to the rest of them at times. He never pushed her away though. Her favourite sibling simply because he never cared enough to be cruel.

The day he disappeared was fixed in her mind forever.

The argument. The angry words. The silence from the rest of them.

She misses him every day. She made his favourite foods and kept the light on every day until she left.

Vanya looks him up every-so-often, making sure he’s not been declared dead. He is still officially a missing person’s case.

> "Gruesome but fascinating. Easily manipulated due to enthusiastic, if naïve nature. Must learn to suppress my nausea in order to study further."  
>  —The Monocle

Ben died three days after she left the Academy.

She is too late to save him, but there is hope for the rest.

> "No discernible talents. Some enthusiasm for music, but mediocre skill—can hardly even hobble through a Paganini caprice. Utterly useless."  
>  —The Monocle

She smiles when she reads that. Apparently her father possessed a greater penchant for self-delusion than she thought.

Vanya closes the file, noting the scattered pages and images, notes and tests of her siblings scattered on the floor. She drifts over to her violin, still cared for and used regularly, and begins to play.


	2. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sir Reginald Hargreeves dies. Vanya isn't ready, but she goes back anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah. Super thankful for the amazing response to this. Thanks for the comments and kudos, they mean a lot to me. 
> 
> Just a note that this fic occurs 5 years before the TV series. They're all 25 here.

Sir Reginald Hargreeves dies before Vanya can finish going over his files. She’s woefully unprepared when she turns up on the doorstep, umbrella in-hand and feeling calmer than she has ever felt on the steps of the Academy. When she steps into the cavernous entry-way and finds her sister, Allison, standing tall and strong and looking happier than Vanya has ever seen her, she can’t stop herself from giving her a hug.

It's awkward, but they manage.

“It’s been so long,” Allison opens. “How are you doing?”

Vanya makes a decision on the spot then and there. She can’t lie to her siblings; she won’t let herself become part of the cycle of manipulation and abuse their father had started. He’s dead. Now all there’s left to do is deal with the aftermath.

“I’m doing great,” she replies after an instance too long. “I’ve just qualified as a psychologist, actually. Graduated six months ago.”

She’ll wait until they’re all together to tell them about her powers.

“How about you, Allison? I heard you got married.”

Allison smiles, but it’s sharp and jaded.

“For three years now. I have a daughter too, Claire.”

She shows Vanya a picture of an adorable toddler, all tight curls and Allison’s smile. Vanya has a niece. Excitement surges and the sounds of an empty house sharpen into focus. The sun suddenly appears from behind the heavy cloud cover and Vanya snaps out of it, careful to dispel the sound energy subtly.

“Tell me about her.”

They cross into the library and before she knows it, they’re swapping stories of their teenage years. Vanya laughs when they realise they both dated Archibald Croft, an unassuming man who could bore anyone to death within five minutes.

Patrick, Vanya finds, is everything Allison wanted but nothing she needed. She keeps that little opinion to herself. Thankfully her sister seems to be settling down, reflective in a way she never was previously. The lights of Hollywood seem to dim in comparison to the love Allison has for Claire and Vanya wants to meet her desperately.

“You know,” Allison starts, guilt not quite hidden. “I want to be a better sister to you all. So-”

“What’s she doing here?”

The question comes out of nowhere, startling them both out of their bonding moment.

Diego’s enthusiasm for leather doesn’t appear to have changed in the past nine years. The tight trousers and a complicated harness to hold as many knives as humanly possible are new, however. He’s scowling, dark eyes piercing hers. The scar across the side of his head is new, not fresh, not recent, but it hadn’t been there when she left.

“He was my father too,” she replies, enjoying the flicker of shock that crosses Diego’s face when she actually stands up for herself. She shouldn’t be enjoying this. She shouldn’t be partaking in their fucked up family dynamic, but being back in this house, with her siblings… It’s all too easy to revert to old behaviours.

“You walked out. You left us. You didn’t even show up for Ben’s funeral,” he spits, shock quickly morphing into the anger she remembers.

Not coming to Ben’s funeral is one of the points on the long list of things Vanya feels guilty about. If she’d gone back to the house, she knows she wouldn’t have left again. She never would have broken free. It doesn’t make up for the fact she hurt her siblings, but she’s back now to try and figure things out. She wants a relationship with them which is at least nominally healthy.

“I’m sorry,” she says, meaning every word. She’s not sorry she left. She’s not sorry she didn’t come back. She is sorry that she wasn’t there to help support her grieving family. She is sorry she left them all behind to deal with their father without her, even if she knows she couldn’t have helped back then.

Her simple apology takes the wind out of Diego’s sails. Her brother loves them all. Deeply. It’s a defining part of his personality. He never wants to hurt them, even when he does. Diego has always been a good person and a good man under a mountain of trauma and issues; she’s glad that hasn’t changed.

“Whatever.”

He sits on the couch with a thud, heavy boots resting on the fabric in a way which never would have been allowed if Dad was still alive. Funny how the possibility of damaging one of Sir Reginald Hargreeves’ priceless couches weighed on the man far more heavily than damaging one of his own children.

It’s an awkward moment of silence before Allison braves breaking it.

“What have you been up to, Diego?”

Her voice is full of false-cheer, pushing them to talk. Allison always did hate silence, almost as much as Klaus.

“Boxing. Saving people. Just joined the Police Academy.”

Diego tosses one of his knives in the air. A nervous tick, Vanya’s mind supplies, a way of controlling his anxieties. The spinning knife does nothing to cut the tension hanging thick between them all.

“That sounds nice,” Vanya says, refusing to wilt under Diego’s glare.

Her brother had always been motivated by the need to help others, rather than their father’s orders. Vanya never really understood until she started to get into clinical psychology at college and realised the simple joy of making someone’s day just a little bit better. She understands it now more than ever.

Heavy footsteps save them from more pleasantries which nobody is invested in apart from Allison. Luther has always been loud, never feeling the need to stay quiet so Dad wouldn’t notice him. He was only rarely the target of Dad’s anger and disappointment, so never needed to learn to fade into the background like the rest of them. 

He’s been living here, so it’s strange they haven’t seen him sooner, but Luther never had understood the sibling bond very well.

“Dad’s dead,” he announces as if they would have ever willingly gathered together under alternate circumstances. “I thought we could have a memorial service or something. Pay our respects.”

It’s the Number One she remembers. He makes a plan of action, sticks to it, orders the rest of them, and they follow it. That’s the way it’s supposed to work in theory. None of them are scared teenagers anymore, however, following their brother blindly to avoid any more punishment and terror.

Luther is hunching over, his form seeming smaller than it actually is. It’s a huge contrast from the way he usually puffs himself up, trying to make himself a larger and more intimidating presence than he already is. Vanya can see the strain of Dad’s death lying heavy on his broad shoulders. It’s easy to blame him for the way Dad fucked him up to the extent that he never lost his loyalty to the monster, but right now he needs someone to help him through the death of a man he still loved.

“That’s a lovely idea. Do you know what he wanted?” she asks, ignoring Allison and Diego’s joint confused looks. She needs to be here for all her siblings, not just the ones she actually likes.

Luther launches into an explanation about Dad’s favourite spot and the conversations they would have there, as oblivious as always to his siblings’ jealousy. It’s clear he has no idea what private training sessions meant for the rest of his siblings. He has no idea how cruel Dad could be. Once he realises the damage carried around by his brothers and sisters isn’t just teenage angst and defiance, that safe world-view he shields himself behind is going to be shattered. Their father was one fucked up son-of-a-bitch.

When Luther finally notices the practiced, blank looks on Diego and Allison’s faces, he stops. Vanya has tried to keep her mind focused, picking up on the positives Luther can use to get him through the grief.

“You remember right?” he asks, looking at them all with an innocence that Vanya wishes the rest of them had.

“Dear brother, none of us have heard a kind sentence from the bastard, Lord rest his soul, let alone a friendly chat,” Klaus says, appearing from behind a desk, where he’s apparently been this whole time.

He looks rough, Vanya notes, smudged eye-liner and greasy hair barely enough to distract from his skinny frame or the way his hands shake. His eyes still dart around the room, like they used to when they were children, settling on things only he can see. Klaus is never completely still, always moving in a way that infuriated Dad. The man was in every way the stereotypical eccentric intellectual, unable to appreciate people who thought in a different way to he did. 

“Oh look,” Klaus says, spinning dramatically and pulling Vanya’s mind out of her analysis. He has one of Dad’s expensive whiskeys in his hand. “The whole gang back together again, wouldn’t Dad be proud.”

“Hey Klaus,” Vanya says. He gives a her a genuine smile, apparently happy to see her. He was always the brother she was closest to after Five.

“Hey Vanya! Thought you’d escaped this crazy train. Guess the old man being dead does take some of the whole horrible childhood shine off the place.”

Luther puffs up, the same way he always does when someone pisses him off. He never realised that when someone was selected to spar with him it was a punishment for them, rather than a treat. Dad rarely hit them himself, always choosing Luthor to be his loyal enforcer, never missing a chance to make them complicit in his abuse.

“Watch your mouth,” he growls, missing the way Klaus flinches back. The rest of them don’t.

“He didn’t mean anything, Luther,” Allison says. She stands and moves towards him, placing a careful hand on his shoulder. “He’s just being Klaus.”

Allison has always been the only one who can get through to Luther. Maybe it was the teenage crush they had on each other, or the fact that after him, she was the one who followed Dad’s orders best?

Vanya does have to suppress a wince at her words though. After her, Klaus was the one their siblings ignored the most growing up. She can’t even imagine how she would have turned out if she hadn’t gotten help at college.

Allison doesn’t seem to be getting through to Luther this time. He brushes her off and takes a few steps closer to Klaus, the one who never took to physical combat well.

She has to do something before this turns physical.

“I have powers.”

Ouch. Probably should have been a bit more tactful. The stress must be getting to her. 

Her family freeze and stare.

“No, you don’t,” Diego says.

“Dad said you didn’t.” Luthor’s contribution.

Allison is giving her an assessing look, half-way between disbelief and pity.

Klaus is the only one who looks like he’s entertaining the fact that she’s telling the truth. Considering he’s been high with increasing regularity since he was fifteen it’s not particularly comforting. Though he seems more put-together. Not entirely out of it like he could get while he was on the pills, but not entirely all there either.

She focuses for a second, catching Klaus’ quiet whispers to someone none of them can see and grasps the sound, fuelling her powers. The house shakes a little as Vanya struggles to keep them controlled and raises them all carefully off the ground before dissipating the energy.

“I have powers,” she repeats. They may have not have the most precision, or particular delicacy, but they’re hers. 

Diego sits down heavily, staring at her in shock. Luthor follows, as does Allison.

Klaus lights a blunt and blows a kiss in her direction. At least it’s nothing hard.

“He made me make you think you were ordinary,” Allison bursts out after a moment. “That time, in the basement. God, we couldn’t have been more than six.”

Any misplaced anger Vanya holds for Allison vanishes at the pain in her sister’s voice.

“It was a cage,” Vanya says. Mind flashing with images of the spikes and the solitude and the single sound of her heartbeat thudding. “A soundproof cage meant to contain me if I became too dangerous. I’d already killed two nannies by accident.”

She shrugs helplessly, begging them to understand.

“What is it with dear old Dad and putting his kids in cages when he can’t control them,” Klaus sighs, so quiet only Vanya can hear him. She had gotten sick to her stomach reading about her father’s experiments on him.

“Maybe he was right,” Luthor says. “If you’d already killed innocent people.”

It hits her like a punch to the gut. Her therapist had been non-judgemental, something you’re taught when you’re trying to help people with deep-seated mental health issues. She’s still working through the shame.

Diego gives his brother the constipated look he gets when he agrees with Luthor but doesn’t want to and her heart sinks a little.

“Like any of you can talk,” Klaus bursts out. “Do you guys even know the number of ghosts that follow you around, screaming for revenge? Because I do, and it’s not pretty.”

Everyone stops and looks at him. Vanya’s heart takes a hopeful surge upwards when she realises Klaus is on her side.

“Did you all conveniently forget what my power is?” Klaus pauses for a moment, eyes wild and a slowly burning blunt in his hand. “And you wonder why I’m fucked up.”

Klaus takes a few staggering steps forward and spreads his hands wide, enjoying being the centre of attention as much as he did when they were all touch-starved kids, begging for scraps. 

“I think we all need a bit of time to process,” says Allison, diffusing the situation as normal. “Let’s meet back here in the morning. We’re all tired and could use some sleep.”

Diego is the first to leave, not even bothering to glance at any of them as he storms to his bedroom, slamming the door shut so hard they can hear the frame rattle. He hasn’t said a single word since Vanya made them all float.

Luthor and Allison go together at her coaxing.

“Jesus Ben, shut up.”

Vanya is left with Klaus, who’s talking to someone not there. Her heart clenches at Ben’s name, her brother long-dead, the one who Klaus had been closest with. Hallucination or not, it means something to her brother.

“Fine.” Klaus turns to Vanya. “You were always special to me. You know that, right?”

Vanya blinks. She couldn’t have anticipated this honesty, especially not from Klaus. He has always been the unpredictable one of the family. There’s a pause before he continues.

“You never made me leave. Those nights when Ben needed to be alone. I never thanked you for that.”

He’s gone before she can reply, left standing alone in an empty library full of memories.


	3. Connections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanya wakes up in the night. She and Klaus get some bonding time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still super greatful for the response to this. I cherish every comment and kudos.

Vanya wakes in the middle of the night. She’s shivering under the covers, breath coming in icy puffs, crystallising in the frigid air. It’s not uncommon for her to wake up. Her therapist has suggested several methods to get her to sleep a whole uninterrupted eight hours, but they haven’t found anything which works yet.

She leaves her room, memory weighing heavily as she walks down the hall towards Luther and Allison’s rooms. It’s the lingering fear of finding them dead, the old nightmares never quite leaving her in adulthood, that has her opening Luther’s door.

He’s fast asleep, breathing soft and barely audible in the still air. He’s gained a few more records since the last time she was here, but everything else is achingly similar. The model airplanes he painstakingly built during one of their scheduled training times, using the manual dexterity and fine motor-skills approach to get their father to agree, are still hanging from the ceiling. She can still see the childish paint-job that he’d agonised over.

Luther still sleeps on his front, arms folded under his pillow. It’s the one time he looks like a normal adult, rather than the imposing culmination of their father’s making.

Allison is next, pink bedroom full of dolls and dress-up. She’d used her own money to buy most of it, earned from films and interviews.

When they were much younger, they used to use the bedsheets to play. They were princesses rescuing their brothers from towers, or mermaids discovering treasures at the bottom of the sea. Mom always used to smile when she saw them acting like real children, not tools in Sir Reginald’s toolbox.

Her sister always sprawls in her sleep, limbs everywhere and hair in complete disarray. She lets out soft snores, less put-together in sleep than she is awake. There’s a book open, face down on the nightstand. It’s a stupid little book of stories Vanya wrote when she was younger, Five helping her with the spelling and phrasing.

A small warmth settles into her stomach and she closes the door with a click.

Diego still sleeps on his back, and Vanya stifles a small smile when she realises he sleeps with his harness on, always ready to fight. He still has the photograph they took, back when they turned thirteen and all snuck out together. Even Luther had come along. The donut shop had been incredible and the seven of them are smiling in the picture they took. All genuine smiles.

“It’s nice to have you all visiting.”

Vanya jumps out of her skin, almost reaching for her powers until she sees it’s Mom.

She stands at Diego’s doorway, looking exactly the same as she did nine years-ago when she helped Vanya pack her bags. Mom had been the one bright point in each of their lives, though Vanya struggles to see her as a person the same way Diego does. Her father had a good enough grasp on human psychology to program Grace to be the perfect mother, not including her ever standing up for her children.

“It’s been so quiet without you. Just Sir Reginald, Dr. Pogo, and Luther,” she continues. “I missed you, Vanya.”

Mom named them all. At seven. When Luther asked their father why everyone else had names, but they all had numbers. It hadn’t even occurred to Dad to name them before that moment and because it came from Luther instead of one of them, he’d agreed.

“I missed you too, Mom.”

“Do you want a snack? Or some warm milk? That always helped you kids get back to sleep.”

It was usually Vanya who woke up at night to wander around the house in the dead of night, always hoping she wasn’t caught. Sometimes Ben joined her, though Klaus occasionally did when the ghosts were particularly loud. Five was never interested, sleeping through the night with an ease none of the rest of them could ever manage. Her brother was always buried in books, using learning and curiosity to focus and distract him, blocking out the world.

“Thanks, Mom,” she says. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

Vanya hesitates outside Klaus’ door. She’d ignored Five’s completely, not ready to confront those memories yet. Klaus slept in a soundproof room, door locked by their father around half the time. She hates watching him sleep, heart aching for the nightmares playing out in his mind every night, the ghosts following him into his subconscious.

She pushes through her own hesitance, opening the heavy door.

Klaus is tossing and turning, muttering under his breath.

“Leave me alone, please. I can’t help you,” he begs, desperate for a moments peace.

Klaus lets out a small moan, hands covering his ears, curling into a tiny ball on the bed.

“No, no, no. Please. Stop. I can’t.”

Vanya can’t just watch anymore. She crosses the room and shakes his shoulder a little, trying to snap him out of whatever nightmare has him trapped. She can only imagine. Hers are bad enough.

“Klaus?”

He bolts awake, eyes wide and panicked, breath catching in his throat. His hands shake as he fumbles for his bedside draw, pulling out a lighter and a cigarette, not even noticing her until he takes his first shuddering breath, filling his lungs with poison. Klaus looks at her after a few, aching seconds, finally reconnecting with reality.

“Vanya,” he says, pasting a smile over his face. “Fancy meeting my favourite little sister here!”

It would be a whole lot more convincing if she couldn’t see the tear-tracks fresh on his cheeks.

“You were having nightmares.”

She sits on the bed, reaching a hand out to rub his knee in what she hopes is a soothing manner.

“When don’t I?” he replies.

He flashes a fake, pained smile at her and sits up, running a hand through sweat-drenched hair.

“Drop dead,” he tells the air above her left shoulder. “With the dearest of love.”

Vanya struggles for a second, not quite knowing what to say or how to say it after so many years of separation.

“Mom’s making snacks,” she says. “You could join me if you wanted?”

He shrugs, making no move towards standing up.

“The offer’s there.”

She makes her was out of his room, pausing just outside the door. Klaus takes her hand after a few moments and suddenly they’re children again, sneaking around after dark, keeping the nightmares at bay together. They used to play a complicated cross between hide-and-seek and it, sometimes hiding from Dad or Pogo instead of each other.

Mom smiles when they come into the kitchen, still holding hands. She never ratted them out to Dad for sneaking out of their rooms at night, only if they actually left the property. Vanya isn’t sure if it was a programming mistake or if Mom cares enough to hide something harmless.

“I had a suspicion you wouldn’t be alone,” she says, putting down two mugs of steaming milk and a plate of cookies. “They’re chocolate chip; your favourite. I’ll be upstairs if you need anything else.”

Mom gives her a kiss on the cheek, moving on to brush some of Klaus’ curly hair out of his face. Whether she has independent feelings or not, she’s a caring force they need in their lives, the only stability they really had.

“Thanks Mom,” Klaus says, leaning into the soft touch, always seeking something gentle and receiving it so seldomly.

Chocolate chip cookies are still her favourite; Mom was right about that. They’re also still Klaus’, her contrary brother preferring the mundane option to something more out-there. It’s supportive to her theory that Klaus truly is an eccentric, choosing to be himself every time over any other option. 

He proves her right a moment later, sitting up on the table and happily defying social convention even when there’s nobody to see him. Klaus doesn’t care what many people think of him, always happiest when he is left alone to be himself.

Vanya eyes Klaus carefully as he wraps his shaking, emaciated hands around the steaming mug. He’s not exhibiting any of the usual symptoms of intoxication, though he’d been smoking cannabis earlier. Her eyes instead catch on the medical bracelet, loose around his wrist.

“Rehab?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

His words are drawn out, completely exhausted, and she’s reminded of the substance abuse courses she took as part of her training. Recovery is almost impossible without a support system. She hopes Klaus will let her be that for him and that she is strong enough to not be chased away.

“I’m not on the hard stuff anymore,” he says, looking at her. Looking for judgement. “Just the weed. It dulls the whole…”

He waves his arms gesturing to the general vicinity.

“That’s great to hear.” She means it. Every addict recovers differently. While still smoking illicit substances increases the chance of Klaus relapsing into more dangerous drugs, she has to have faith he has a handle on things. If he’s managed to stay away from the pills while coming back to his childhood home, she’s sure he’ll be able to handle it.

Klaus smiles at her, a genuine if confused one this time.

“How about you?” he asks. “What’s going on in Vanya’s life?”

“I’m a licensed psychologist,” she tells him, honestly. She notes the tension creeping into her brother’s shoulders.

“With our family it figures one of us would grow-up to be a shrink,” he says, voice bitter.

Vanya takes a deep gulp of milk, slightly too hot and burning on the way down.

“I’m not going to psychoanalyse you unless you ask me to. I just want to be your sister. A better sister,” she admits.

She wants to help too. More than anything. Vanya isn’t going to force her training on anyone unless they ask her, however. They’ve had enough of that for a lifetime. She also knows her family won’t talk to a stranger. Ever. It’s not best practice to treat your own family, but it’s going to be necessary at first.

“You left.”

It’s a simple statement. No blame, no admonishment.

“I had to leave. I don’t regret it,” she says, and watches as Klaus collapses in on himself a little, losing a little of the openness they were sharing in this moment.

“I’m sorry I left you behind. You especially. I should have said goodbye at least.”

Klaus looks away, gripping his mug tightly and taking a vicious bite out of his cookie.

“You should have,” he snaps, and for the first time she sees her brother angry. Klaus tends towards fear and desperation; the anger is new. “You have no idea what it was like for the rest of us.”

His voice shakes and Vanya takes a deep breath, rooting herself in the moment. He has every right to be angry, she reminds herself. Klaus lost the two people he leaned on for support within a week.

“He thought Ben and I helped you.”

Klaus’ voices cracks and he looks down, trying to hide the tears that are slowly slipping down his cheeks. Dad loathed any sign of what he considered weakness. The man hated it when they cried, and only Klaus never quite learned to suppress or hide his tears.

“He was so angry. He locked me away and I didn’t even find out Ben was dead until he started talking to me.”

The statement hits her like a punch to the gut. Mom had helped her. She couldn’t even imagine Dad caring enough to blame her siblings. With Five long-gone he’d taken it out on the other two brothers she was close to. She can only hope he didn't lock Klaus in the mausoleum instead of his room, but they were never that lucky.

Vanya can’t stop herself wrapping Klaus in a hug after a few moments of him shaking in front of her. She’s never been a particularly physical person, needing very little contact with other people to keep her satisfied. Emotionally she needs more, but Klaus has always been the most tactile of all the siblings, never receiving even a fraction of what he needs.

He doesn’t stop crying, just shakes in her arms, face pressed into her shoulder.

After what seems like an eternity, certainly long enough for the milk to have cooled down, he sits up, wiping his eyes and pushing her away gently.

“Doesn’t matter anyway. Dear old bastard is dead now.” He claps, false cheer lighting up his face. “Yay!”

Vanya can tell his defences are back up. She won’t push tonight. They have all the time in the world with their father dead.

“Well, that was a fun chat. If you want to have any other conversations about our oh, so wholesome childhood, you know where to find me.”

He spins on his heels, coat flying out around him, and dumps the rest of his milk into the kitchen sink.

She gets a kiss on the cheek and her brother is gone, humming and swaying to a beat only he can hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everybody enjoyed.


	4. Letters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reginald Hargreeves has one last surprise for his children, and the siblings have a bonding moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies this took so long. The next chapters should be faster! Have a wild Number Five!

At dawn, Pogo slips four letters under four doors. Loyalty wins again.

***

Dear Number One,  
For some time now I have been aware of a string of attempts on my life. If you are reading this letter, one of those attempts has succeeded. Do not believe the coroner’s report. It will state heart failure. Your brothers and sisters will not believe this.

There are some things too important to be confined to something as insecure as a letter, so you must use Number Four to contact me. Pogo will provide you with the notes in my office pertaining to appropriate motivation for him. It is my suspicion he may even be able to return me to life.

Do not fail me, Number One. I’m relying on you.

Sir Reginald Hargreeves

***

Luther reads his letter and tucks it carefully into his shirt pocket. Most likely candidates for Dad’s murder are his siblings. Vanya and Diego topped the list. He’ll wait until they’re all downstairs and search their rooms. There has to be some evidence.

***

Number Two,  
While the Police Academy is a waste of your talents, at least you have the self-respect to continue with the mission. I hope your insolence and disobedience serves you better there, but I have my doubts.

The scar on your face should serve as a reminder of what happens when you make mistakes without a team to back you up. You know it was well-deserved.

I’m proud of you for your ability to kill without mercy. Even Number One struggles with morals vs. results, though he exceeds expectations in all other areas. If you ever manage to get over your infantile vigilante dream and return to the Academy where you belong, you might be able to do something worthwhile.

Try not to die. I know that might be hard for you.

Sir Reginald Hargreeves

***

Diego almost doesn’t read his letter. Curiosity wins out and once he finishes, he wishes he hadn’t bothered. He heads down into their gym early to punch his anger out, brushing off Mom’s concern. Luther better not try anything today. He’s walking a tightrope of control right now.

***

Number Three,  
I have watched you waste your abilities with interest as your career progresses. Your power certainly makes up for you lack of talent. At some point you’re going to find something which requires actual work and you are going to fall at the first hurdle. Even Number Four has some degree of talent outside of his power.

Your sham marriage seems to be going well. It won’t last. Much like your incestuous relationship with my Number One, when you’ve drained this Patrick of everything you could find of use, I’m sure you’ll leave him. 

When things get tough, you cheat or run. Nothing will change. The sooner you learn that the better.

Sir Reginald Hargreeves

***

Allison climbs into the attic and pulls out a years-old cigarette, reigniting a habit she thought she’d kicked. It’s disgusting and a definite mistake, she quickly discovers.

She loves her life. Loves her husband and her daughter more than anything. The creeping worry about having used her power on Claire grows in her mind. She could handle difficult situations. She was sure of it. She’s only Rumoured her daughter twice. It won’t happen again.

Allison burns the letter on the rooftop and tries to think no more about it.

***

Number Four,  
You were always my greatest disappointment. Weak-willed, self-indulgent, and unfocused. If you had ever listened to me you would be something more than a junkie, living on the streets with no prospects other than an early grave. Even Vanya has made more of her life than you.

If you ever feel like being more than a waste of my time and energy, feel free to contact me now that I’m dead. I’ll be waiting. I’m hardly holding out hope for your success.

Sir Reginald Hargreeves

***

He can’t breathe. His vision flickers and he’s back in the mausoleum, ghosts pale and screaming, leering at him from the darkness.

“Klaus, keep it together.”

Ben.

“It’s another way of Dad fucking us over. Don’t bother.”

He claws his way back from the brink of a full-blown panic attack and collapses back onto the bed. Sobriety is overrated. He’s not quite ready to disappoint Ben yet, though.

***

“Dad was murdered.”

Vanya sighs and pushes herself up on her bed, still in pyjamas and hair in disarray.

“Hello to you too, Five,” she says. Her brother does always have a knack for timing.

“The Commission have finally noticed I’ve been subtly altering the timeline. Took them long enough,” he continues after a moment. Five completely ignores her greeting.

“So, what’s the next step?” Vanya asks carefully. She’s learnt over the years that Five is either completely delusional due to his time-travelling abilities, or is right that Vanya could end the world. She doesn’t want to take the chance he’s right.

“If my calculations are correct, Dad’s death is the first step in a series of events which lead to you either giving up hope the world can be saved, or accidentally losing control. At this point it’s about 60:40 either way,” he replies, pulling out his notebook and starting to write a series of equations.

Five looks up after a moment and studies her, slight maniacal gleam in his eye giving away the fact that he’s not quite alright.

“You care about all of us, don’t you?” he asks, taking a step towards her.

“Of course.” It’s not in doubt. Perhaps when she left Vanya could have claimed she hated her family. The resentment runs deep, but she loves them. She’d be devastated if anything happened to them. 

“It would only take a moment to end the world,” he hums, lost again in a train of thought. “That makes all of us targets.”

He vanishes after a moment, stepping away into nothingness.

Her brother is a true obsessive, dedicated to saving the world and his family at the cost of himself. Vanya hasn’t been able to win his trust the handful of times she’s seen him over the years; Five is too focused for her to get through to him, and too mobile for her to have the time. She still holds out hope he can settle down when he finally finishes his quest, but it's more likely he'll crash and burn without someone there to pick him up.

A sharp bang and a sudden crack whip through the air. The sound of someone getting slapped and thrown to the floor. It would take a lifetime of therapy to make her forget that sound.

“What the Hell, Luther?” Allison’s voice rings out. “Leave him alone!”

Vanya runs, not caring about the fact she’s barefoot and the house is freezing. She heads to the kitchen, years of watching and listening in a house which was more like a prison mean she can pinpoint any sound in the house. (Maybe her powers have something to do with it too, but she doesn’t want to think about it too closely.)

She hits the kitchen just in time to see Diego physically throw himself in-between Klaus and Luther. Klaus has a split lip and is guarding his ribs, hands trembling slightly and bright eyes flicking nervously between Luther and Diego.

“Dad’s files are missing,” Luther spits out. He takes a step towards Klaus and hits Diego, who doesn’t move. “He must have taken them.”

Shit. She has the files. It most definitely was not Klaus, who’s looking so hurt and confused.

“Why doesn’t everybody calm down?” Allison says, pulling a little on Luther’s arm. “Klaus says he doesn’t know what you’re even talking about.”

“He’s a liar,” Luther roars and the kitchen almost shakes at the volume. “He’s a liar and a thief…”

“And he didn’t steal the files,” Vanya says, cutting him off. “I did.”

Four pairs of confused eyes turn to her and she immediately wishes she was a little bit bigger. More imposing. That would help her find the words that are caught in her throat. Her heart speeds, pounding in her ears at the sudden attention and she wipes her sweaty palms on her pyjama bottoms.

“Why would you do that?” Allison asks. She shakes her head as if trying to clear her previous conceptions physically.

“I wanted to know that everything Dad put us through had a reason. That he had some kind of grand Plan for us,” she says. “I wanted to know if he was trying to save the world and fucking us up was a side effect, or whether he was really just a bitter, twisted old man who enjoyed torturing us for fun,” she says. Her voice rises steadily and the kitchen begins to shake a little with her anger. Vanya’s always worse at controlling herself when she’s angry. “Turns out it’s both.”

A lightbulb shatters overhead, covering them all in glass and a sharp cut to her arm brings her back into herself. She takes a deep breath, settling herself and releases the pent-up energy she didn’t realise she’d been building.

“You can have the files, Luther. They’re in my bag. Just,” Vanya pauses for a moment. She needs to be careful how she phrases her sentences. “Look after yourself. They’re not pleasant reading.”

Luther steps towards her, looking torn between ripping her a new one and going straight for the files. His new mission now Dad has died, Vanya thinks bitterly. He thinks better of it after a moment, knowing he no longer has the upper hand when it comes to powers, and heads upstairs, probably to go through her things.

“Are you okay?” Allison is staring at her, concern written all over her face. It’s genuine and Vanya is hit with the memories of all the times they’d been good sisters to each other, trying to find common ground in a house of horrors.

“I think so,” Vanya replies after a moment. Her anger isn’t swirling out of control at the moment. She’s still righteously pissed: at Luther for thinking hitting them is okay; at Dad for putting them all in a situation where it was expected. It’s more of a slow simmer in her stomach than a roiling explosion.

“Your arm.” Allison gestures downwards and Vanya suddenly realises she’s in a hell of a lot of pain now the adrenaline has worn off.

“I’ll get the first aid kit,” Diego volunteers, always the practical one, always someone who prefers to show he cares through doing.

Allison is rummaging around their freezer, only stopping when she finds a bag of frozen peas, carefully wraps it in a tea-towel and applies it to Klaus’ face. It could be any day from their childhood, post-training where Klaus inevitably was the one who got in the way of a stray fist. They’re adults repeating the mistakes of the past.

Vanya sits by her brother’s side. “Sorry you got hurt because of me,” she says, taking his hand and squeezing.

“Luther shouldn’t have hit you,” Allison agrees.

Klaus shrugs, fake smile splitting his face. “Well, I do enjoy it rough every now and then.” He winks at Allison, but it appears her sister has matured more than Vanya thought because she doesn’t let him get away with it.

“Let us take care of you, Klaus,” she says. “Don’t try and pretend that didn’t hurt more than a random stranger hitting you.”

There’s silence for a moment, broken only by the steady drip of Vanya’s blood onto the tiled floor. Klaus shuts his eyes for a long moment and lets out a breath before nodding.

“I really have had worse,” he says, wry grin a lot more genuine. “We all have.”

They all have. Dad’s training was many things, but gentle was never one of them. The size of their first aid kit is evidence of that alone.

Diego’s carrying the super-sized kit, struggling a little under its bulk.

“I think there’s some tweezers in there,” he says. “Show me your arm.”

Vanya complies. Diego is careful, gentle, as he pulls out a long shard of glass and bandages the cut, the others watching in silence.

“Did anyone else get a shitty letter from Dad, or was that just me?” Klaus asks, apparently feeling comfortable enough to talk again.

Allison and Diego got a letter each. Vanya didn’t. She tries not to let it sting her, still being left out, especially when they seem to have been filled with nothing but harsh words. Dad’s still an asshole.

The discussion dies down after a few minutes of angry ranting, mostly from Allison and Diego and they sit in silence.

“Do you think he was right?” Allison asks, voice small. “Is my power the only talent I have?”

Diego and Klaus exchange awkward eye-contact and Vanya steps up to the plate. Nothing but the truth will do.

“At first, maybe,” she says, wincing as Allison’s face falls. “But you worked your ass off to become a better actor. You can’t Rumour every critic into giving you awards. You can’t Rumour every fan into loving your movies.”

Klaus reaches out and squeezes Allison’s hand. “Dad never cared enough to get to know us. He may have watched hundreds of hours of footage of us growing up, but that doesn’t mean he knows who we are, now or then.”

Vanya smiles a little. Klaus, even at his most wasted, occasionally comes out with pearls of wisdom. She’s missed all of them dearly.

“I have a friend who loves you,” Diego adds. He’s being so earnest it hurts; it reminds Vanya of when they were young and Diego didn’t feel the need to hide his softer side for their father’s approval.

“Thanks guys. I don’t know why it got to me so much,” Allison says after a moment. “I thought it would get better once he died.”

It’s an unspoken thing between them. Well, probably not Luther, but it’s an unspoken acknowledgement that they would be better once Dad died. They all know Dad screwed them up, but none of them other than Vanya have got to the stage of realising that they have to fix themselves alone. There’s nobody that can save them but themselves. A little help is always needed and Vanya wants to be that help now, when there’s nothing left to hide behind.

“Do you think I’ll be a good cop?”

“You’ll be the best,” Klaus says, punching Diego slightly and swaying a little in his seat. “You give a shit.”

Vanya would have given anything when she was younger to have this, to actually talk to her siblings and have them support each other. Now she’s not so sure the price was worth it.

They break apart eventually, going their separate rooms to brood and mourn in peace, and for the first time, Vanya’s hope that she might be able to help feels more solid. They’re all more mature. Maybe it’s not just a fantasy.


	5. Threats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanya and Klaus plan a shopping trip. Luther creates a crisis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your comments and kudos. They helped me through a rather rough spot with my mental health.

Klaus can’t help creeping into Vanya’s room after the weird moment in the kitchen this morning. They’re all brooding, apart from Luther who’s furiously reading in his bedroom, going through Daddy Dearest’s notes on them all as if the old bastard had any plan other than torture and manipulation.

He’s tired. He’s sober and the ghosts are loud and Ben’s busy doing whatever things Ben does when he leaves and Dad’s letter is burning through him, a fire that takes and takes until there’s nothing left but a burnt-out shell of who he used to be. He just needs someone to distract him.

He knocks before coming in and freezes when he sees his sister’s room, barren and empty and so tiny compared to the rest of them.

“Could use some work on the décor,” he jokes. “I’m handy with a paint brush.” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively, and gets a warm tingle of happiness deep in his gut when Vanya laughs.

“I’ll take you to Home Depot,” she replies. “I promise my apartment is much nicer.”

There’s a sense of relief that Vanya has an apartment creeping over him. She didn’t leave one night with no plan and spend her life sleeping on the streets or in stranger’s beds or in shelters. He’s not selfish enough to wish his life on any of his siblings. He knows he’s a mess. The alternative of getting clean and having to deal with the ghosts and himself is just worse than dying young in a dumpster from an overdose.

“You would trust me to do your room?” he asks. It’s a genuine question. Klaus steals and whores himself out for drugs on the best of days. Trust in him is at an all-time low.

“I struggle with style,” Vanya says, shrugging. “My apartment is nice, but your room has always been so you.”

His room started as teenage rebellion. At eight. He scribbled all over his walls with marker, painted murals with paints which were meant to be used for art classes. Not that Dad ever cared about art beyond the need for them to hone their fine motor skills.

The posters came when he started creeping out the house to go to underground concerts and raves in basements. He was always the youngest there, voice not broken and not hit his first growth spurt. The music drowned everything out and he could simply be himself, eyes shut and dancing to the beat. No ghosts, no expectations, no voice in his head beating him down.

The fairy lights came at 15, when he started experimenting with feminine styles and clothing. His first foray had been cut short by a tumble down the stairs, so he started with skirts and make-up. Dad had given up on his addict son by then, aside from the occasional trip to the mausoleum to sober him up and ‘train’ his powers. The man didn’t even acknowledge Klaus’ presence enough to notice him existing, let alone a change in wardrobe.

He’d never considered it his style before. It was just him.

“Um,” he struggles for a moment, a little lost to the words which have always come so easily for him. “What’s your favourite colour?”

“White. But everything is so clinical,” she sighs. “Could you help me with my apartment? Use this as a tester?”

He pauses for a moment, heart dancing with joy at the fact someone wants to spend time with him. It’s pathetic, but he’s so desperate to talk to someone other than the dead he hates he’ll take it.

They spend a few hours coming up with ideas and things Vanya likes before Klaus sighs, writing her off as a complete hipster and she pushes him off the bed.

“My own sister,” he says with a dramatic groan, hand over his heart.

“Well, not all of us can pull off the effortlessly cool, goth aesthetic,” she laughs in reply. 

Klaus actually blushes, heat rising to his face in a way that hasn’t happened since he had his first kiss, half-drunk and wasted in the back of a much older boy’s pick-up truck. He’s not used to compliments unless they’re about his cock-sucking lips, or how great a fuck he is.

Of course, they get interrupted. Because god-forbid anyone have any joy in this household.

“Klaus, Vanya.”

Luther stands in the doorway, hands in his pockets. He still carries himself with the self-assurance of a man with black and white morality, never able to see the shades of grey.

“I need to talk to you,” he says to Klaus.

Luther speaks so casually, as if he hadn’t been threatening Klaus earlier for thievery. He’s not entirely unjustified, but Klaus’ lip is still stinging and without Vanya he probably would have more bruises. It’s also an order. It seems like nothing has changed for Luther, while the rest of them have grown up, at least a little.

He spreads his arms in the universal symbol of go ahead and takes a solid amount of vindictive pleasure when Luther looks irritated. His brother had always been easy to wind up.

“Alone,” Luther continues, eyes flicking over to Vanya. Klaus is sober enough, and isn’t that a shock for the ages, and perceptive enough to catch the glint of fear.

Go Vanya.

“Fine,” he says.

Vanya looks like she wants to intervene, but Klaus steels himself with a look to her bandaged arm. She’s done enough for him for one day.

“Remember we have a date tomorrow,” he tells her, and gives her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Don’t leave me hanging.”

He follows Luther into Dad’s office, bare feet a total contrast to the heavy thud of his brother’s boots. The cravings, background noise to his life but so quiet when he was with Vanya, creep back into prominence. He might be clean, aside from the weed, but need still thrums under his skin.

“I need you to conjure Dad,” Luther says.

“Excuse me,” Klaus says. He blinks. Luther wants him to do what?

“I said,” Luther repeats, voice dripping with disdain. “I need you to conjure Dad.”

Nope. Apparently Klaus heard Luther right the first time. The great and mighty Luther needs him and his ‘useless’ powers for once.

“Why would you even want to see the bastard?” he asks, because he’s always had the self-preservation of a squirrel on crack cocaine.

“Just do it.”

Klaus raises an eyebrow. He’s not been a member of the Academy for a long time and he’s not about to start taking orders again without question.

“No.” The word tastes like freedom on his lips. He never would have dared say no to their father, or even to Luther if the man was still alive.

“Dad said he had something to tell us,” Luther says, sighing as if common courtesy was somehow a chore. Klaus has had Johns who were more polite.

“I’ll think about it.” He even means it. He needs to consider his options. The pros and cons. It’s difficult and exhausting to summon a specific spirit, if Dad was desperate, he could just manifest of his own accord. It’s probably some kind of test, cold dead hands unable to let go of the control he has over Klaus.

“No,” Luther says, blaze of fury Klaus is used to flaring in his eyes. “You’re going to do it now.”

He grabs a sheaf of papers and jabs at them with his finger.

“You’re going to conjure Dad, or I’m going to make you do it,” he continues. “Memorial Lane.”

His chest freezes, breath seizing. Klaus can feel his body reacting viscerally before his mind catches up with what Luther has just said.

Memorial Lane. The mausoleum. His nightmare.

When he left home at seventeen (crawling through his window to find his bags packed and dear of Dad standing there, disapproving and oh so cold in the way he dragged Klaus to the door and threw him out without a backwards glance) he promised himself he’d never go back. Not without a fight.

He plasters on a smile, leaning back in the carefree way he knows drives Luther insane.

“Sure, big guy,” he says, putting on his most condescending voice and throwing his arms wide to hide just how much he’s shaking with fear. “Whatever you say.”

Luther grabs him, by the black fur coat he loves, one of the few things he genuinely owns, a gift from a guy who had tried to help him before giving up when he realised just how broken Klaus is.

“Get off,” he says, striking out in panic and landing a glancing blow on Luther’s arm. His feet lift the floor as Klaus finally hits a nerve; Luther never did like disobedience.

“You have one day, then I’m dragging your scrawny little junkie ass into that graveyard,” Luther spits, throwing him into Dad’s desk.

That’s going to leave a bruise. It’s a good distraction from the panic running around and around his brain, digging its claws into his soul. He sinks to the floor, feigning injury and submission so Luther will leave and he can have a nice private mental breakdown. He’s sure he hid some e somewhere in his room.

The door slams and he flinches, allowing himself a glance to the side. Luther doesn’t get to see him cry.

“Klaus?”

Great. Every embarrassing moment since he was seventeen, Ben shows up for.

“Go away.”

“Are you okay?”

God save him from his sensitive caring brother. All he wants is to have a nice cry in peace. Get so high he doesn’t remember is own name, let alone the screaming of a child left alone in the dark with the dead.

“Please leave me alone.”

Ben never listens. Ghosts never do.

“Did you take something?”

Klaus buries his face into his knees. It always comes down to the drugs. Get high? Judgement. Useless. Worthless. Good only for a quick fuck in a back alley or some mindless entertainment. Get clean? Must be the drugs causing him to act out. No way Klaus can have an actual human emotion while sober. He can’t win.

A dry sob creeps out of his throat.

“Oh fuck. Klaus? Klaus?”

Ben sounds panicked now. The way he gets when Klaus is overdosing or selling himself to the wrong people or getting beaten up again because he wore a skirt on the wrong street. The way he gets when Klaus goes far far away into himself where nobody can hurt him anymore.

Ben fades into background noise and Klaus is floating.

The only time he gets to live in silence is when he’s floating.

***

“Vanya!”

She jolts out of her book with panic in her chest, used enough to living alone that someone calling her is foreign now.

Diego comes into the room, flustered and with a hint of panic curling around the edges of his mouth. Whatever anger he holds onto, the fury at her for leaving them all, seems pushed to the side right now. They were never close, never friends as siblings.

“Vanya, you need to come help. It’s Klaus,” he continues, hands shaking and body tensed to fight.

It’s a lot harder to fight an enemy which is only in your mind.

She follows her brother, remembering flashes of the past. Diego always was the first to protect the rest, and never as afraid to ask for help as Luther is.

The find Klaus curled up against their father’s desk in his office.

She moves on instinct, on her knees in front of him before she can even process what’s happening. His skin is cold and clammy to the touch, minute tremors and shakes spreading unevenly across his body. He’s always been the one most obviously affected by their childhood and the abuse and it’s hardly surprising he has the first and most extreme reaction to being back in the house of horrors.

His breath comes in short, desperate gasps as his eyes flick around the room scarily vacant in a way the drugs never seem to manage.

“Hey Klaus,” she says, voice as soft as possible. Heaven knows they never heard a soft voice in this house. “It’s Vanya.”

Diego shuffles behind her. If he’s going to hang around he might as well be useful. She jerks her head, towards Klaus, all but ordering her brother to come sit by him. Diego does as he’s told.

“Diego is here too. You’re safe with us, I promise.”

“I’m here,” Diego chimes in, catching on quickly. “We’re in Dad’s office, by his desk.”

“I’m going to touch you now, Klaus,” Vanya says. “Right knee.”

She carefully reaches out, growing more concerned by the second by the lack of reaction. It’s been hours since she last saw Klaus. How long has he been here?

A small whimper comes out when she first makes contact, causing Diego to shoot her an alarmed look, but she keeps going, grounding herself as well as her brother as much as she can.

“We’re here,” she says. “We’re real.”

A flash of anger hits her out of nowhere.

Weak-willed. Frightened. Unfocused. Constant nightmares. Unable to successfully distinguish the dead from the living.

Words Dad used to describe Klaus. What he’d done by locking her brother in the mausoleum was nothing short of torture.

Diego has taken up where she left off, murmuring a string of comforting words to Klaus that Vanya is honestly impressed with. Perhaps police training has started to break down some of the tough outer-shell Diego wears for protection.

Something must break through to Klaus as he takes a shuddering breath, curling in towards Diego and dragging Vanya in with him until they’re a tangle of limbs on the floor. Before he died, Ben said Klaus used touch to ground him, but nobody had really had enough time to figure out what that meant before the Academy fractured.

Now, curled up together on a priceless Persian rug and slowly starting to connect again, Vanya is starting to figure it out.

“Are you okay?” Diego asks, breaking the silence.

Klaus just shudders, eyes closed and reaches for him, like a drowning man reaches for someone to save them. He clutches onto them both with trembling freezing hands, almost clawing in his desperation.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says, carefully detaching Klaus’ hands from their death grip around his wrist and running a careful hand through his brother’s hair instead.

Somehow they manage to wrestle Klaus back to his room, more easily said then done when his body has managed to become the consistency of jelly and he’s clinging to them as if he’s an octopus.

Three adults manage to fit all together on Klaus’ single bed. Thank goodness she’s tiny and Klaus is so skinny. She’d sometimes caught Ben and Diego like this, sandwiching Klaus on the nights when he came home late without dinner, nights she now knows he spent screaming in a tomb. Something has to have triggered this.

“Is this real?” Klaus croaks.

Diego’s devastated expression says it all.

“It’s real, Klaus.”

“It’s not every day I get such beautiful bedfellows,” Klaus says with a wink, shields rapidly coming back up.

Diego shoves him lightly, “I’m not your type.”

“You’d be lucky to have me.”

Vanya allows herself a smile. The crisis has passed.


	6. Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luther and Vanya have a chat. Diego and Vanya make a promise to Klaus.

When Luther passes by Klaus’ door and he flinches, a full-body action that nearly knocks Diego and Vanya to the floor, Vanya makes a decision.

She gets out of the bed, planting gentle kisses on to each of their heads before padding out of the room after her eldest brother. Diego gives her a confused, sleepy frown before Klaus clings onto him tighter, making up for the lack of her physical presence. The war goes on visibly on his face, the debate on whether to go with her or stay with Klaus, but as always for Diego, his need to be a protector wins out, and he stays behind.

Vanya closes the door behind her, padding quietly down the corridor in her thick woollen socks to Luther’s rom. She knows she looks timid, small and unassuming. She uses it to her advantage. Luther doesn’t notice her until she shuts the door to his room, slamming it with a burst of her power.

“What did you do?”

The slam of the door behind her builds in her mind and she reels in her powers, waiting to see if Luther puts a toe out of line. None of her siblings have ever been strong enough to stand a chance in a one-on-one fight. She knows it’s not entirely his fault and he’s just a fucked up as the rest of them, but right now he’s hurting their family and he has to stop now.

On brand as always, Luther seems entirely clueless about anything he might have done. That level of obliviousness kept him shielded from the effects their father’s upbringing had on the rest of them. A simplified world-view caused him to completely avoid having to confront the fact that they were all abused by the man calling themselves their father. The man they still call Dad.

“What did I do?” Luther echoes. 

“What did you do to Klaus?” she clarifies, keeping her anger tightly coiled and under control. Her therapist would be appalled.

Luther rolls his eyes and Vanya’s power flares out of control, the room shaking slightly as her anger blossoms. The door slamming echoes louder and louder as boiling anger turns to red-hot fury. 

“Does it matter? It’s Klaus,” he says, oblivious to the room starting to resonate with her.

They’ve all said similar in one way or another over the years. Their father was dismissive of any emotional reactions, more-so of any visible signs that they were breaking under the pressure he put on each of them. It took her a long time to realise that she was allowed to feel things for herself, let alone other people. Luther hasn’t even had time away from Dad to work things out on his own.

She’d like to think she treated her other siblings better, but the truth is they are all so wrapped up in their own dysfunction and self-destructive coping mechanisms that none of them ever had much time for each other.

Guilt saps her as the memories come pouring back.

When they were younger Five would always cut deep with his insults, lashing out to hide how much he cared. He was softer with her, but they still got into arguments, slinging insults at each other until they were both sent to bed without dinner.

Diego, hands bleeding and blistered stuttering over his words would come to her and she snapped at him, not having time for him and what she now knows is a disability, not weakness. 

She can see Allison, eyes wet and desperate after taking a verbal thrashing from their father for not using her abilities in a fight, and Vanya snarling at her. Allison had powers, at least her father was acknowledging her existence. If Vanya had her powers, she would have been useful.

When she found Ben, quiet and sombre, sleeping in more and more. Barely getting out of bed every day and shrinking into himself until he’s just existing, she’d believed Dad’s words hook, line, and sinker that he was just lazy. She’d told him to his face that it wouldn’t matter if he died, because how he was acting right now was like he was already dead. Her words keep her up at night on the anniversary of his death.

Klaus never seemed to take anyone’s words to heart, brushing them off with his ever-shifting and changing personality. He could weather their father’s lectures with a smile, insults bouncing off him where they would dig deep into the rest. When their father moved into physical abuse in an attempt to get through to the unruliest of them, Klaus would endure without making a sound. If he just behaved, Dad wouldn’t have to hurt him, she screamed one day, upset and desperate for him to be okay. She never could stand the sound of violence, flesh hitting flesh, or the crack of Sir Reginald’s staff over Klaus’ palms. When he turned to drugs, they all brushed him off and forgot about him; who believes the junkie?

The brother standing in front of her, Luther, never wielded words as weapons like the rest of them. Sure, he regurgitated Dad’s fucked up brand of tutoring, repeating his dismissive words and attitude with a casual cruelty, but it was never original. Luther was always physical. Threats, backed up by violence as his powers gave him an edge over the rest of them and his position of Number One meant any attack against him would end in punishment at Sir Reginald’s vicious hands.

Luther is the ultimate brainwashed child, still clinging desperately to Dad’s orders after the rest of them long-since stopped.

Guilt always dampens her powers and she can’t condemn her brother for something she herself indulged in.

“It matters because he’s our brother, and you hurt him,” Vanya says, after the silence has stretched into awkwardness.

“It’s just bruising. He’s had worse,” Luther replies. “He was high and I needed him to focus.”

Vanya takes a deep breath and grounds herself. None of them should ever have had bruising aside from innocent accidents. None of them should know what it’s like to have worse, to hold yourself together through the pain of broken limbs and stab wounds. They shouldn’t have scars, both visible and invisible that their own father put there.

“You can’t hurt any of us anymore, Luther. We’re not naughty children you can boss around,” she says. “We all have our own lives now.”

“Dad said-”

She cuts him off before he can finish.

“Dad’s gone. He hasn’t controlled any of us but you in years.”

It’s harsh, not the way she would have chosen to do this, but Luther needs to know she won’t tolerate this. None of them will. 

“Dad doesn’t control me. I’m just being a good son.”

Vanya winces at that. On a rational, intellectual level, she knows nothing any of them did would ever have been good enough for Sir Reginald. They would never receive the love they were all so desperate for. In her heart, she still carries the little girl who just wanted to be good enough so that Dad would love her like he loved the rest of them.

“I’m just being a good sister,” she says, instead of letting their father hurt her again. “What you did is assault and next time I’ll drag you to the police and let Diego book you.”

Luther takes a threatening step towards her and Vanya lets her eyes flare white, a little reminder of her powers.

“You wouldn’t,” he says, voice unsure.

“You need help, Luther, but I’m not letting anyone else get hurt because of your control issues,” she tells him. “You can’t run away from the consequences of your actions.”

Luther’s face hardens.

“You don’t know anything about consequences, Number Seven,” he spits. “You never had to make difficult decisions. You never took responsibility for anything or anyone other than yourself.”

The words sting. It might have been true when she was sixteen and left home, but not anymore. She’s here now. While she can’t take responsibility for anybody’s actions other than herself, she can help other people. She can make difficult decisions. Luther wouldn’t be the first person she took to the police.

“It doesn’t matter what you think of me,” she says. “I’m not going to stand around while you act like Dad’s puppet and hurt us.”

Silence falls, Luther avoiding eye-contact with her.

She leaves him, hoping some of her words have taken root, that he might begin to question their father. She doesn’t have much hope.

Diego accosts her as she leaves, dragging her down the corridor to Klaus’ door, where they can both see him sleeping fitfully.

“Thanks for looking after him,” he says. “I didn’t think anyone else cared.”

She takes it for the apology and forgiveness it is. Diego doesn’t do emotional conversations, he’s all about actions. Vanya knows she hurt him when she left, that she hurt all of them. Diego holds a grudge though.

“I never stopped caring, Diego,” she says, aching to reach out and touch, to comfort. “There were so many times I wanted to come back.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I was afraid I’d lose myself again; become the strange little shell of a person I was.”

It’s the truth. Raw and honest, what she needs to say. It’s what Diego needs to hear.

“We’re all running, in one way or another,” he says. “Maybe it’s time to stop.”

Diego could be perceptive and insightful when he wanted to be. He’d make a good detective, Vanya feels.

“Hey, guys?”

Klaus calls out to them and they turn in unison to find him staring, wide-eyed at the foot of his bed. There are dark circles beneath his eyes, eyeliner and lack of sleep marking him.

He visibly relaxes when they step into the room, Diego hurrying over to place a hand on his brother’s shoulder the same way Ben used to when they were children.

Reginald’s notes said touch grounded Klaus. The bastard had taken steps to keep them all separated after that.

“Sorry for the epic freak-out,” he says, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck self-consciously.

Klaus only apologises when he does something he shouldn’t need to apologise for. Stealing and deliberately irritating them and his general lack of modesty don’t make him feel the need to say sorry. Having a normal human reaction to something, however, that’s what makes him embarrassed and contrite. Vanya really hates their Dad right now.

Back in college, when she was still drowning in self-esteem issues, she would apologise for everything she did. It took Leonard, the emotionally abusive asshole that he was, to get her to stop. She might hate his guts, but he was the first person to tell her she didn’t need to apologise for existing, and his words have stuck with her, even if he didn’t.

Klaus is steadfastly refusing to make eye-contact, hands fiddling frenetically with his bedsheets. A quiet Klaus is something every one of the siblings had often wished for before he had his jaw wired shut and they were left to deal with the silence of the Academy without their brother to fill it up.

“It’s not your fault,” Vanya tells him, winding an arm around his waist, thankful when he melts into it. “Everybody had bad days and this place is a minefield of trauma.”

“Do you want to tell us what happened?” Diego asks, voice soft and deliberately pitched. Techniques for interviewing victims and techniques for getting people to open up in therapy seem to be remarkably similar.

Klaus curls into Vanya and shakes, curly hair bobbing in time with his head. Vanya allows herself a moment to relish the contact; they’re all touch-starved in one way of another.

“Shut up, Ben. I don’t have to tell them anything.”

Diego shifts, but keeps his composure at the mention of their dead brother. They’ve always been sure Klaus was just making things up, but Vanya’s not so sure now.

“What do you mean they already know?”

Klaus lets out a dramatic sigh, as if his larger-than-life personality that he magnifies even larger can hide the fact he’s terrified.

“Ben says you already know Luther threatened to lock me up in the mausoleum Dad used to trap me in unless I summon the dead bastard. So why are you asking?”

Vanya already knows about Klaus’ personal training sessions. Klaus was the other sibling Dad thought could cause the Apocalypse if they lost control of their powers. 

He’d chosen a crypt where the worst of the worst were buried: a family of cultists who trapped and tortured over thirty victims before turning on each other. They’d preyed on young boys between the ages of seven to fifteen, all with dark hair and green eyes. She’d gotten black-out drunk that night and woken screaming to the memories of being trapped in the soundproof tank in the basement.

Dad couldn’t use the same tricks on Klaus he’d used to contain her. His power was to abstract and passive in its base form. He’d broken Klaus, the kindest of them all. These were the consequences.

Diego doesn’t have her advantages and recoils as if struck at the mention of the mausoleum. His confusion quickly morphs into anger when Luther reinstates himself at the forefront of Number Two’s mind.

“Luther did what?” he asks, voice deceptively calm and flat in the way they all learnt meant an explosion was incoming.

“Don’t get pissed at Luther, Diego,” Klaus replies, hopelessness sinking int every word. “He’s just following Dad’s instructions. Nothing new there.”

His bony hands grab at Diego’s collar and their brother acquiesces for now, though Vanya knows he’s going to instigate a fight with Luther at the earliest opportunity.

“He’s not going to do anything, Klaus,” Vanya says, words a promise. “He’ll have to go through us first.”

Diego gives a sharp nod of approval, a promise to help her protect the rest of them like he’s been trying to do alone since it became clear Number One would only ever agree with Dad. Klaus used to help too, drawing off Dad’s attention and taking the blame for everyone’s mistakes until the punishments grew so harsh he lost himself to drugs and sex and became nothing more than a burden to the rest of them.

“We’re still going shopping tomorrow, right?”

The sudden change of topic signals the end of their look at the small, vulnerable, shattered pieces of their brother’s soul. It’s as bright as it ever was.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope this was enjoyable! More to come!


End file.
